Nick Park

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Transcript of Nick Park

Nick ParkBiography of Nick ParkNick Park was born on the 6th of December 1958 in Lancashire, England. He was the middle child in a family of 5 children. When he was growing up he was interested in cartoons and at age thirteen his mother helped him to create stop-motion films using cotton bobbins. Knowing that making films was his passion he studied the communication arts at Sheffield Hall University then went on to the National Film and Television School. He started his first Wallace & Gromit film ' A Grand Day Out' as a graduation project but then worked on it part time when he was hired by Aardman Animations. Biography continuedWhile at Aardman Animations Nick went on to create 4 more Wallace & Gromit short films & movies; The Wrong Trousers, A Close Shave, The Curse of the Were-rabbit & A Matter of Loaf or Death. He also worked on other projects by Aardman Animation like Creature Comforts, Shaun the Sheep & Timmy Time. Throughout his career he has won 5 BAFTAS, 4 Oscars & 6 award nominations from BAFTAS, Emmys & Oscars.Techniques used to gather ideas & conceptsNick Park doesn't have a specific technique to make & gather ideas. He just uses the people that are around him and the people he sees as inspiration. Wallace from Wallace & Gromit is partly based on Nick's father who was also an amateur inventor and is ironically named after an over-weight Labrador that Nick saw boarding a bus. He came up with the name for Gromit from the word 'grommets' which was a term used frequently by Nick's brother who was an electrician. Process used by Nick Park to create stop motion animationFirstly, Nick Park draws a storyboard (a rough sketch) of what the characters are doing in the scene while his co-worker writes a script of what the characters are going to say in the scene. Throughout this process Nick & his co-worker would swap roles so that the story reel (a series of storyboards that tell a movie or story)& the script could be worked on at the same time. Mock clay models are also made during this process. After the story reel & script have been 'completed' it further goes under changes by other staff who might remove a scene, edit a scene or add more scenes so that the animation is improved. Process used by Nick Park to create continuedAfter Nick has made a story reel he uses his own voice to voice the characters and puts in temporary music & sounds so that he gets a feel of what the animation might be like and whether more changes should be made to the animation to make it even better. After the story reel is finalized, the animators begin to make the character models out of Aard-mix (A special mix of plasticine used by Aardman Animations) sometimes multiple amounts of the same character so that animating could be done faster and in different locations. Meanwhile the scenery & background is also being made. When scenery, characters & the voice recordings are done, Nick begins positioning the character in the scene like it is in the storyboard, along with adjusting the lighting & camera so that the animation looks good.Concept Art for the Were-Rabbit in Wallace & Gromit : the Curse of the Were-Rabbit Making a plasticine figurine of WallacePreparing a scene for Wallace & Gromit : The Curse of the Were-RabbitNick Park directing a scene in Chicken RunEmerging technology in AnimationEmerging technologies in stop motion animation that Nick Park could use in his animations is the process developed by Australian company Melodrama that uses Stop Motion Pro & XDT's custom software RawMotion. Firstly the camera uploads the image to RawMotion that then in a few minutes turns them into high resolution images. Then the images are managed automatically by CMS(Content Management System) and once the editing of the pictures are done, they are put into Stop Motion Pro that immediately turns them into a stop motion animation. This process is much faster because it only takes a few minutes to process the image so that it has a high resolution but inother large scale productions a batch of images may take a few days to turn into high resolution images.Careers in Visual Effects DesignGraphic Designers are people who work on designing websites, newspapers, magazines and and other form of media to make them look more aesthetically pleasing and they also work on making logos and other images for businesses to use.Duties & Tasks: Able to get a clear goal of what the client wants, Able to identify problems and solve them, Able to showcase design ideas to clients and oversee the entire designing & printing process.Personal Requirements: need to be creative and have an understanding of visual design, able to manage their time so that they finish projects on time, have selling & communicative skills and has the ability to work well as a team.Work Conditions: Indoors but for three quarters of each working day.Qualifications Needed: Any VET course or higher education qualification in graphic design.Weekly Income; Full Time/Part Time: FT $1136/PT $1053Careers in Visual Design Cont.Multimedia Developer makes images, animations, sound,text,videos and turns them into applications that can be used by other people to educate themselves, to present data or for entertainment purposes.Duties & Tasks: communicate with clients to find out what is needed from the product, find the right software that should be used to fulfill client's needs, find and prepare the images, animations, etc needed to make the product and talking with other experts in the same field about the product.Personal Requirements: An interest in computers and designing, Able to be a leader, Have good time management and complete projects at their deadlines, patience to understand new technology, the ability to follow instructions and to give the client's needs of the product priority.Work Conditions: Indoors for three quarters of a day while sitting down for long periods of time.Qualifications Needed: A VET course or higher level qualification in digital media or through a traineeship.Weekly Income; Full Time/Part Time: N/ACareer in Visual Design Cont.Illustrators make drawings & designs for various forms of media like books, magazines, advertisements & films. Theycan specialize in a certain area of illustrating either a cartoonist or animator using the medium they specialized in.Duties & Tasks: Use the right style of drawing or animating for the current project, create rough sketches of ideas for the client, study the topic that the cartoon or animation is going to be about, communicate with the client and comply with their request of changes to the project.Personal Requirements:have great drawing skills, able to fulfill the requirements of the client, have artistic talent, comfortable on the computer & able to illustrate movement & timing.Work Conditions:It's mainly indoors and most illustrators spend three-quarters of their day inside.Qualifications needed: No formal qualifications requiredWeekly Income; Full Time/Part Time:FT$1136 & PT$1053Process used by Nick Park to create Stop motion Cont.After all the images are reviewed and edited by Nick & some of the other staff members they are sent to a lab where the images take a couple of days to render into high quality & resolution images. After the images have been rendered they are put into a program called Stop Motion Pro which automatically turns the images into a Stop motion animation. The voices & other sounds are added to the animation to make it complete.The Were-Rabbit from Wallace & Gromit : The Curse of the Were-RabbitA scene from Wallace & Gromit : A Matter of Loaf or Death